[Samba] samba 3 performance with windows 7 workstations

[peter lawrie]

Further to previous post.
I have changed each of the seven win7 PCs to use smb1 instead of smb2
It has made no difference to Sage performance.
I noted today that a batch task which would previously take 1-2 minutes
completes in an hour.
I checked on the server processes and the user running sage had 1 minute 6
seconds of server time when the task completed.
I had assumed that the only variable was replacing XP workstations with
win7, but I discovered today that the accountant had been in last week and
installed Sage line50 2014.
Anybody have any ideas?
Peter Lawrie



On 16 May 2014 19:57, peter lawrie <peter.lawrie at glendiscovery.co.uk> wrote:

> My customer has a Centos Linux 5.10 server running Samba 3. (Samba version
> 3.0.33-3.40.el5_10)
> The machine is about three years old. I suggested that they should
> consider replacing it with a Centos 6 machine and Samba 4, but they decided
> as it was doing its job without any issues to keep it as is. I also
> suggested updating to samba3x but they decided not to do this.
> I recently installed a centos 6/samba4 server for another customer but
> they do not use Sage so I cannot compare performance. That customer has a
> mix of XP, win7, and win8 but nobody is complaining of performance
> differences.
> At home I also have Centos 5.10 with samba3x (Samba version
> 3.6.6-0.139.el5_10)
> I use a win7 PC as a domain member and have not noticed any issues when
> moving up from XP - but I don't have Sage Accounts.
>
> The customer at issue decided to replace seven desktop XP PCs with Windows
> 7 pro. All now installed and working.  After discussion, they decided they
> did not really need domain machines, so the win7 PCs have been set up in a
> workgroup. I advised them if they wanted to join a domain they would need
> samba3x as a minimum, and preferably a new server with samba 4.
> Normal use appears to be fine, office applications from the server share
> work just as well a before including their access databases.
> However, they have found a significant problem with their Sage accounts
> package. The data is stored on a samba share with the applications on four
> of the PCs. Performance is significantly less than before.
> I told them to turn off 'remote differential compression' but apparently
> that has not helped.
> What other windows 7 features may be affecting network performance?
> I have three other customers using Sage on Samba servers, they are still
> using XP workstations, but at least one of them is intending to upgrade in
> the next couple of months, using the same centos5/samba3 setup so
> suggestions are urgently required.
> Changing from samba3 to 3x appears to involve rebuilding samba which will
> take time. I normally visit this customer during working hours and they
> wanted to minimise any disruption to their business. If the solution is to
> install 3x then so be it, but I have told them they would not need to until
> they were ready to replace the server.
> Peter Lawrie
>
>